Daniel Kirk-Foster

Daniel Kirk-Foster is a pianist, organist and music director who lives in New York City. He received music degrees from the University of North Carolina School of the Arts and the Manhattan School of Music.

Mr. Kirk-Foster is both an accomplished organist and pianist. He has performed organ concerts throughout the New York Metropolitan area in churches and sacred spaces such as St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Princeton University, Park Avenue’s Brick Church, and St. Paul’s Chapel, Trinity Wall Street. He is the Director of Music and Organist of St. Nicholas of Tolentine Church in the Bronx. He was one of 6 organists invited to perform Dupre’s Stations of the Cross as part of the inaugural concert series of the new Cavaillé-Coll inspired Casavant Frères organ at New York’s Brick Church. Mr. Kirk-Foster was also Associate Organist of Brick Church and regularly accompanied the professional choristers in their concert series and services. He has served on the Board of the New York City Chapter of the American Guild of Organists and was Chair of the St. Wilfrid Club, a private organization of New York City area organists.

Mr. Kirk-Foster has also performed extensively as a pianist and won the Manhattan School Contemporary Ensemble Competition. As a winner of Artists International, he presented a recital in Weill Hall at Carnegie Hall. He has performed with the Sarah Lawrence College Orchestra, the MSM Contemporary Ensemble Orchestra, the Composers Concordance, The New Music Consort, and in contemporary music festivals in Sacramento and Santa Fe, and in contemporary music concerts in CAMI Hall in New York City. He has performed a wide range of contemporary music and has given U.S. and world premiers of various composers such as John Cage, Philip Buhler, Nicolas Roussakis, and Charles Wuorinen. Mr. Kirk-Foster performed Rachmaninoff’s Second Piano Concerto, Third Piano Concerto, Rhapsody on a Theme by Paganini and Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue and the Brahms First Piano Concerto at Princeton University. He has recorded on the CRI label with composer/soprano Susan Botti. Mr. Kirk-Foster has performed on the New York City classical music station WQXR’s “The Listening Room,” and has been a featured guest artist by various organizations and arts councils. He was artist-in-residence at the National Academy of Design in New York City for four years. He performed Saint-Saens’ Carnival of the Animals and Bach’s Double Piano Concerto with the Pan American Symphony Orchestra. In 2005, he presented a concert of the piano works of the French composer Louis Vierne for the New York City Chapter of the American Guild of Organists President's Day Symposium on the life and music of Louis Vierne, and in 2008 he performed an all-Messiaen recital at Steinway Hall in New York City as part of the AGO President’s Day Symposium on the life and music of Olivier Messiaen. He has also performed several times at the Tibor Varga Music Festival in Switzerland. He regularly accompanies New York City choral groups and has collaborated with singers from the Metropolitan Opera and other professional musicians in the New York City area.